Everyman's Land

all the difference may puzzle

the time or inclination runs it: or if no one has time it runs itself. Consequent

the numbers of both our rooms scrawled on them in pencil. Nobody was there at the time, but when the concierge came back (he is a sort of unofficial understudy for the mobilized manager) he saw the cards and sent them upstairs. They were taken to Brian and the names read aloud to him. He supposed,

m look so beautiful. He is beautiful you know! Now that his physical eyesight is gone, and he's developing that mysterious "inner sight" of which he talks, there's no other adjective which truly expresses him. He stood there for a minute with his hand on the door-knob, with all the

at Mrs. Beckett. We are enough alike, we twins, for any one to know at a glance that we're brother and

o, touched by the pathos of his blindness-the lonely pathos (for a blind man is

He used to say, if only you'd signed it, his whole life might have been different. That was when he'd lost Mary, you see-and he'd got hold of her name quite wrong. He thought it was Ommalee, and we never knew a word about the enga

, and listen admiringly to him. But this wasn't an ordinary time. To see Brian stand at the door, wistful and alo

rt out-as most people would-"I don't understand. Who are you, please?" Instead, his sightless

; but as it was I could not. The question seemed settled. To have told the Becketts that I was an adventuress-a repentant adventuress-and let them go out of my life without Brian ever knowin

possession of the hand Mrs. Beckett had left free. "I never told you about my romance. It was so short. And-and one doesn't

me when his parents had hurried over from America to see him. I-I could

en though you're speaking of the past. We're all one family now. You don't mind my say

story-because the hero's gone out of it-no, he hasn't gone, really! It only seems so, before you stop to think. I

in our dark hour. I feel as if Jimmy were here with us. I do believe he is! I know he'd like me

y" who was still a mystery to him. He caught up the subject and said that he didn't understand. What pictur

sn't quite finished. You'd meant to put on a few more touches-and your signature. Well, 'Wyndham' was only the middle name. I never told you much about that day. I was

. I wouldn't lie in words. Mrs. Beckett might give him her version of her son's romance-some day. Ju

ouse, where Jim could join them whenever he got a few days' leave: and as a surprise for him they had brought over his favourite treasures from the "den." Among these was the unsigned picture painted by the brother of The Girl. They had even chosen the house, a small but charming old chateau to which Jim had

hing to live there. And crossing on the ship we talked every day of how we'd make a 'den' for him, full of his own things, and never breathe a word till he opened the door of the room. We're in honour

et that," said Mr. Beckett. "Remember we've just adopted a dau

But just now I can't make myself feel as if one thing was any better than another. If only

m, dear. Perhaps from talk they ha

ied. "I've no

an?" the old

They never met! Brian couldn't know

rian. "But a thought has come int

t him as if they fancied him inspired by their son's s

d bluntly, as a child puts q

never quite realized till now, when we lost Jimmy, how poor

on, as though he had wandered from his subject. But I-knowing him, and his slow, dreamy way of get

th a choke in his voice. "Of course we would wish it, if it coul

n went on. "He is not in German soil, or in No Man's Land

ttle old lady. She realized now tha

together will be Everyman's Land af

risen like the Ph?nix out of their own ashes. That's why I call France and Belgium Everyman's Land. You say your Jim spent some of his happiest days there, and now he's given his life for the land he loved. Wouldn't you feel as if he went with you, if

your lips, and tell us his wish," said

. "It's right the word should come t